Inspiration blog

The Experience Brands Weekly #134

Friday, February 17, 2017

Accenture rethinks loyalty in 2017

Accenture’s latest high profile white paper claims loyalty programs are wasting brands billions as the modern consumer demonstrates few commitments.

They say these programs often represent a significant recurring cost which can scarcely be justified in marketing returns. Their Seeing Beyond The Loyalty Illusion report urges marketers to think differently about loyalty, for example in recognising its value for acquisition objectives:

“Customers who are fully engaged tend to refer others. Rather than investing in initiatives aimed at directly increasing the wallet share of loyal customers, companies can benefit from placing greater investment emphasis on leveraging the goodwill and word-of-mouth generated by the loyal base as a source of “warm” acquisitions.”

Additionally, they observe that Millennials will dictate a completely new language for loyalty over the coming years as they are actively turned-off by the current loyalty environment. Rather than the focus placed by many on customer service, issue resolution and price incentivisation, the report finds that Millennials value personalised experience, innovative experiences and exclusives.

Their tactics for maximising the value of loyalty point towards the need for a nimble organisational approach in which feedback from customers and digital interactions are acted on quickly and investment goes into driving advocacy and recommendation. If the old approach to loyalty was more focussed on rewarding the individual to drive increased frequency, this proposes a social era approach in which the benefits of an advocate are reaped through their network.

OTHER BITES:

If Carling did fonts... they would probably be the best in the world

As part of their sponsorship of the Premier League Carling have access to football highlights which they push out over a variety of media, including their app where users can view the best goals of the month. The beer brand has now come up with a genius idea to bring football footage to the bar and entertain pub goers as their pints are poured. The new prototype font has a digital screen that will show classic goals from the 25-year history of the Premier League and is currently being trialled at The Argosy, a Sizzling Pub & Grill, in the wonderful, beautiful and downright amazing city of Derby. Carling brand director Jim Shearer said “in addition to pouring a fantastic pint of Carling, we believe the digital font will be a conversation starter at the bar when people see the amazing Premier League content.” We couldn’t have put it any better ourselves Jim.

Snickers help the forgetful get out of the dog house on Valentine’s Day

Snickers carried out a nice extension of their "You're not you when you're hungry" campaign for Valentine's Day. The brand created 16 billboards across London saying "you're forgetful when you're hungry", with "forgetful" being made up of free Valentine's Day cards for people to peel off and take. The interactive billboard is a clever tactical play and shows that the people at Snickers are thinking about the yearly calendar to come in order to spot opportunities to weave their strapline further into the public’s consciousness, by making it relevant to topical occasions.